HEADING

George Abbott: Appointment with Death Cancelled

By Rod ThomasThe 700 Club

“I thought maybe it would go away, but it didn’t go away,” George said.

“I asked him, you know, ‘well, what’s wrong?’ his wife, Cheryl remembered. “And he said he was in such pain that he couldn’t stand it. And for him to say that I know that it’s very bad”

Cheryl rushed her husband to a nearby hospital.

“Well, they found gallbladder cancer,” George said. “This is a very rare form of cancer.”

Doctors performed emergency surgery to remove the cancerous gall bladder; but there was more bad news.

“When they did the surgery, the cancer had gone down into the liver bed,” George said. “And that, as you well know, basically the prognosis is that you’re not going to live very long.”

Their family doctor, Dr. McQueen, who is also their friend, feared the worst.

“His prognosis was poor,” Dr. McQueen said. “With the stage of the cancer being advanced, once it had metastasized to another organ, he is classified as advanced stage carcinoma. For George, his treatment options were limited. Not only were those options limited, the ones that were available to him, in many cases, will take your life.”

Facing almost certain death, George got a second opinion.

“Same diagnosis, same prognosis,” George said. “The only difference was that this doctor was a little more positive and he said to me, ‘we’re going to operate.’”

“He also said, ‘okay, this is in the upper part of the liver; but if I open him up and I find any cancer anywhere else in the liver, I’m just going to close him back up because then there’ll be nothing we can do,’” Cheryl said. “I just thought, ‘I cannot lose my husband.’”

At the surgeon’s recommendation, George did not undergo chemotherapy or take any medication before surgery. Ultimately, he knew his fate was in God’s hands.

“I know that God heals,” George said. “But I’m also a realist and I know that the Bible says, ‘it’s appointed once to die, and then the judgment.’ So, I was ready to accept this - that if this is the time that God wanted to take me home, I was ready for that.”

As the surgery date approached, Cheryl prayed for God’s help.

“Our church got together and had a prayer meeting and one of the ladies in the church or maybe more than one, called The 700 Club and asked for prayer for George,” Cheryl said.

As surgeons performed the procedure, Cheryl got a phone call.

“I got off the phone and I just started crying. ‘The doctor said that his liver is perfectly normal; that there was no sign of cancer whatsoever.’ So we were just hugging each other and crying,” she said.

“The doctor said it looked like a normal, healthy liver. God had taken [the cancer], and I don’t know how He did it. I don’t know whether He just made the cancer go away. I don’t know if He gave me a new liver. It doesn’t matter to me. All I know is God is a God of miracles and he healed me,” George said.

“They believe in prayer and they trust in the sovereignty of God,” Dr. McQueen said. “There is no medical treatment or explanation for that type of result - absolutely miraculous!”

For the past two years, routine tests have shown the same result – no cancer!

“God really did heal,” Cheryl said. “I mean, when God does something, He does it right.”

“Some people today say, ‘well, miracles went out with the apostles.’ Well, I’m here to tell you that miracles did not go out with the apostles, that God is a God of miracles and He is a healer today,” George said. “He gave me a miracle - the miracle of life.”